As for why facades are so narrow in Amsterdam, if people wonder (there are many more below 3 meters). It is because people used to have to pay property taxes based on the width of the facade of their house.
(so the owners of the house in the article got a good deal by being able to have a small facade for a wider house)
Maybe (not letting depth run wild either) something similar could be an interesting way to ensure walkable cities ;-)
Interesting, I remember seeing a sort of an inverted pyramid house. It was built for similar reasons - a tax on the ground area. I cannot recall its location though.
Hah, cool! Thank you. Learn a new thing about your birthplace every day. When you're in Amsterdam walking along the Singel it's easy to recognize because there are always a lot of people in front of it making pictures of each other.
What I like about this is that both the house in TFA and this one are 'leftover space' re-used by someone that figured it's wasteful. It's a pity the house from the article can't be legally occupied, I'm sure it would be an interesting experience to live in a space like that for a while.
